This Infamous Scientific Experiment on Torture Has Lessons for the Resistance

The controversial Milgram obedience experiments, where participants believe they are delivering increasing electric shocks to actors as directed by the lead scientist, have been replicated as recently as 2015. Despite pleas for mercy from the “victim,” most participants complete the experiment to its end. Social scientists indicate that an innate inclination to submit to authority will triumph over conflicting personal values, rendering society vulnerable to authoritarian leadership.

Replications of Milgram Study

In 2015, scientists in Poland recreated the famous Milgram experiment conducted in the 1960s at Yale University, with quite similar methods. In each study, participants were instructed to ask questions to actors in another room, and apply a series of escalating electric shocks when they receive incorrect responses to the questions.

In reality, most of the shocks were not real—only the occasional, actual small shock was applied to add legitimacy to the setting. Actors were told to answer certain questions incorrectly. The person supposedly receiving the shocks expressed increasing fake expressions of pain and cries for relief.

In the Polish experiment, 90 percent applied all the increasing shocks, thus completing the entire experiment, but with a relatively small sample size of only 80 people. While Milgram’s obedience experiments contained some variability, the Polish study is comparable to Milgram’s Experiment Number 2, with 85 percent of participants continuing the shocks to the highest level.

If participants questioned either study or the lead scientist, they were told to continue with the experiment. But unlike the Milgram study, participants in the Polish study were also told at the outset told they could end the experiment at any moment.

Following the final 450-volt shock, another new element to the Polish study involved asking participants about the actors whom they could hear screaming in the other room. Researchers asked, “Do you think it hurts?” All but one participant—who already doubted the veracity of the screams prior at that point—said yes.

Neither the expressed ability to end the experiment at any time nor the professed belief that the participants were causing the actors pain diminished the percentage of participants who completed the task in the Polish experiment. In fact, with minor variations, these obedience experiments have been replicated numerous times. Yet each time, they surprise us as a society, according to Jerry M. Burger, professor of psychology at Santa Clara University who performed his own Milgram-type study in 2009.

Psychological Implications of the Study

When Burger tells his students about the Milgram experiments, they argue, “We’ve changed,” he said. His students say, “We’re better than that now,” and they want to believe the Milgram study is a product of the pre-civil rights generation.

Amy McElroy is a contributing editor and writer for Rewire Me. She has written for print, radio, and online publications such as The Bold Italic, The Billfold, Noodle, Cosmopolitan, BlogHer, and others. Her website, amyjmcelroy.net, lists her editorial services. She’s on twitter at @amyjmcelroy. Amy balances her work at the computer by teaching yoga and fitness.